Today's Blizzard posts include a Warcraft short story and 7.2.5 PTR discussion on Discipline Priests, Brewmaster Monks and Enhancement Shaman. \r\rFor more recent news, check out the recent 7.2.5 PTR Build 23958, the new weekly events and yesterday's hotfixes. \r\r\r\rWarcraft Short Story - Dark Mirror\r\rBlizzard has released a short story written by Senior Game Designer Steve Danuser, which explores Nathanos Blightcaller's past. You can read the story or download it as a PDF from the World of Warcraft website. \r\rHorde players interact with Nathanos Blightcaller in-game during the A Frota Estilhaçada opening scenario and during A ordem da Dama Sombria quest chain which starts at Dreadwake Landing.\r\r<article class="detail"><p>Nathanos Blightcaller has faithfully served the Banshee Queen, Sylvanas Windrunner, both in life and in undeath. This service has demanded great sacrifice\u2014and difficult choices. His unlife has been measured out in many conquests as champion of the Forsaken, but the burden of his duty to the Dark Lady has taken a toll upon his ever-decaying body.<\/p>\r\r<p><\/p>\r\r<p style="margin-left:.5in;"><em>Nathanos looked down at his left hand. There was enough skin and sinew remaining to grasp a bow, and to teach even the clumsiest of his pupils how to nock an arrow. But he could tell that his strength had waned. His undead flesh continued its inevitable decay, and there would come a day when this hand would be rendered useless or rot away altogether. What good would he be to her then?<\/em><\/p>\r\r<p style="margin-left:.5in;"><\/p>\r\r<p style="margin-left:.5in;"><em>He might be a decomposing husk, he told himself, but he still knew the meaning of duty. "Tell me what you command, my queen."<\/em><\/p>\r\r<p><\/p>\r\r<p>Taking place just prior to the first demon invasions of Legion, \u201cDark Mirror\u201d by Senior Game Designer Steve Danuser explores Nathanos Blightcaller's past, the decisions he has faced, and his ultimate transformation. <a href="https:\/\/worldofwarcraft.com\/en-us\/story\/short-story\/dark-mirror" target="_blank">Read it now<\/a>.<\/p>\r<\/article>\r\r7.2.5 Class Discussion\r\rWith today's earlier 7.2.5 PTR build, Celestalon and Sigma wrote some posts on the forums that describe some of the changes that were made in the patch.\r\rDiscipline Priest\r\rAs with other specs, we'd like to get some discussion early in the PTR process about our goals for any significant changes, so that people giving feedback have context for what we're expecting.\r\rFirst, some problems with live Discipline:\r--The mana cost mechanic on Plea is clumsy and makes the spell require a complex evaluation to use at all.\r--Relatedly, PW:Radiance is a no-cooldown Atonement applicator that is better than Plea in almost every way, and is basically limited only by total mana.\r--So the spec is now balanced around very high Atonement count in raids (from using Radiance as much as possible) being the only time Discipline is strong. High-end players have gotten used to this as a playstyle as well.\r--The spec is very dependent on mana, since more mana turning into more Radiances is virtually the only thing constraining your healing.\r\rWe understand that toppling any aspect of this situation gives alarm to high-end raiders, mainly related to power level of the spec. There was one way to make the spec "work" in raids, and the dedicated Discipline players have learned to optimize it to get good performance. And we can probably start assuaging some concerns by saying: without using all nearly your mana on concentrated Radiance usage, and without using focused Innervates to push that even further, we understand the power level of the spec would be clearly impacted absent other changes.\r\rIt is our intention to have fewer average Atonements out in raids after the patch, which will likely involve an increase to either Atonement transfer or simply to damage dealt. This, among other results, should result in an increase in power in all situations other than mass spread raid healing. And even in that situation, there's no overall reduction in power intended, other than perhaps in extreme cases of Innervate stacking. Ideally, Discipline will more regularly and stably be near that level of performance through a normal playstyle.\r\rBecause the spec is so complex, there will surely a lot of tuning of mana costs and damage amounts and the like throughout PTR, to get everything into the right place. But for some further goals on the changes that are in so far:\r--The damage increase is on Smite (I believe this PTR build only has a small damage increase, but the internal build has a much larger one) moreso than Penance. So that your incentive is not to spam out as many Atonements as possible and then convert them to healing with Penance. A decision of more Atonements vs. more damage should be more relevant than it is now, when more Atonements are essentially always right.\r--For similar reasons, reducing mana costs to free up overall mana on the spec was done to Smite rather than Plea. Smite should never feel wrong to cast, whereas shifting to cast a heal spell is an expenditure of mana to get an Atonement, very similar to any heal on a typical healer.\r--PW:R going to more, shorter Atonements rather than fewer, longer Atonements is to allow a quick payoff on a lot of targets (5 or 10) through a Penance and some Smites. Cases such as group damage in dungeon healing should have a tool that's a smoother fit for them now.\r\rThese details are very much open to feedback like anything else, but the main point at the outset is: we're very aware we're poking at the one trick of a spec that is a bit of a one-trick pony in raids. And that requires making sure that all the other parts of the toolkit are up to snuff in the same process. Our hope is that it's not only a clear upgrade for everyone outside the high-end raid setting, but also that those players have a less degenerate and more varied rotation while still performing at the right level.\r\r\rThanks for the post. Any thoughts on making penance heal untalented again? IMO the spec is way hard to play in most situations for the average player. I found myself having a hard time keeping up tanks spike damage in 5 mans, even when out gearing the content.\r\rThis is in the current PTR build--Penance can be used in either mode baseline.\r\rAlso, the problem of the time used to apply Radiances is an issue, because the casting time has to be considered into how long you actually get to make use of those Atonements.\r\rYes, the current cast time and duration might be a little constrained--both are potential things to look at as we see how it plays out. The payoff from a PWR shouldn't feel like it's overly conditioned on getting an exact sequence of a few spells with no interruption.\r\rYeah, sure, makes sense, except one crucial point... you removed the Smite absorb per-cast. That was the one feature about the spell that actually favored having fewer Atonements. A Smite that heals 5 people now does actually even less healing than before, and while it's nice and all that it costs almost no mana, it's the time constraint on Disc now to actually cast Smite that creates a problem.\r\rIt's true that works against lower-Atonement healing somewhat. Overall this effect should work as a talent since it's somewhat situational in a way that contrasts nicely to Castigation, but there could be something different here if it becomes a problem. The Penitent is definitely better baseline since it's an option that is rarely a net power increase to use, but allows some important convenience\/flexibility in some cases. \r\rLack of mana is not why Smite is not cast. Smite is not cast because by the time you're done doing everything else in the spec that costs a GCD, nobody with Atonement is still damaged unless you're on a fight that has literally constant damage every second from start to finish or your fellow healers are really, really bad at the game.\r\rIf nobody in the raid is damaged, then basically no healer has anything to do other than 1) set up something like a HoT (analogy: apply an Atonement), or 2) do some damage. So that's not unusual, and favors making sure that Smite is near-free or free and the mana decisions are on applying the heals (Atonements).\r\rBrewmaster Monks\r\rToday's PTR build has Blackout Strike reduced to a 12sec cooldown, so that two Tiger Palms are enough to reset it, speeding things up noticeably. Please give that a try (in a variety of talent builds if you can), and let us know how that feels.\r\rEDIT: Oh, and today's build also has Rushing Jade Wind's duration increased to 9sec\/Haste for Brewmasters, making it more flexible on your GCDs, and less swingy on GCD utilization.\r\r---\r\rAnd continuing the curtain backpulling (Is that a word? It is now.), here's where our thoughts are right now:\r\rWe hear the feedback that the Tiger Palm -> Blackout Strike CDR mechanic isn't adding interactivity so much as restrictiveness and complexity, even if we get the tuning of it right. I last mentioned that we were considering a design that required (1 Tiger Palm + 1 Anything) between Blackout Strikes. That's still an option, but we're actually planning to try (2 Anything), between Blackout Strikes for next build, i.e. back to just a plain 3sec CD but unaffected by Haste.\r\rWe're also considering letting Blackout Combo reduce the CD of Blackout Strike even further, along with buffing the other talents on that row to compensate. There's some hesitance with that, due to how much power that would put in that row, but it's not totally unreasonable.\r\rEDIT: Oh, and we're also leaning towards Spitfire replacing Chi Wave instead of Chi Burst. If you love Chi Wave, please speak up now!\r\rAgain, none of this is set in stone at all, and your feedback is really helping; keep up the focused and constructive posts!\r\r\rOne point of confusion that I've seen about the new RJW change: The tooltip isn't showing its increased damage, but the total damage per cast has gone up. The damage per tick didn't change. We'll get the tooltip fixed for the next build.\r\rEnhancement Shaman\r\rThat was an error in today's PTR build. Landslide should be in the third slot in L15 (as the patch notes described).

Comentários

Comentado por tazeel

Why Blizzard? Why? Why you keep putting psycopaths as Warchief? Nothing can save Sylvanas after this in the players eyes.

Comentado por Gulver

on 2017-04-18T14:54:09-05:00

Well, that's pretty dark. Par for the course for the Forsaken.

Comentado por kellorion

on 2017-04-18T14:56:36-05:00

Yea....she banged him.

Comentado por Caerule

on 2017-04-18T16:00:44-05:00

I am very happy to finally know what the hell was up with Nathanas suddenly being a dead human with red eyes, rather than a normal-looking Forsaken. Took a while, but it seems we finally have our answer.\r\rAnd yeah, seems other speculation was true too. Those dang Windrunners just can't help themselves where it comes to humans, can they?\r\rEither way, it was great to see more Forsaken lore. I hope this is the first of more short stories!

Comentado por Necromorta

on 2017-04-18T16:06:51-05:00

Yea....she banged him.\r\rAlways baffles me, that people can talk about leaders, male leaders of the lore with respect, but anytime it comes to a female leader, it gets to the point where they are basically not much than a sexual objects.\r\rAnd no, there are no words about sexual intercourse in this story. Nathanos is (maybe) infatuated with Sylvanas, but I don't see more.

Comentado por Dagik89

on 2017-04-18T16:42:19-05:00

Super dark man...

Comentado por CaveMaster

on 2017-04-18T16:44:24-05:00

Yea....she banged him.\r\rAlways baffles me, that people can talk about leaders, male leaders of the lore with respect, but anytime it comes to a female leader, it gets to the point where they are basically not much than a sexual objects.\r\rAlways baffles me, that when a woman and sex is mentioned together it automatically means objectification and disrespect.\r\rAs if a woman couldn't have sex without being objectified. \r\rAnd thus, while trying to defend a woman from objectification, you end up perpetuating the myth of sex as male prerogative.\r\rAnd actually, in this sentence, Nathanos is an object. "She banged him", not "he banged her".

Comentado por AlakeiThancan

on 2017-04-18T16:52:54-05:00

Also, there are far more talks about Thrall banging Tabetha\/Ja\u00efna\/Aggra than there are Sylvanas. In fact, I think it's the first time we have a confirmation of Sylvanas having a relationship.

Oh and, it's not literally written "SHE HAS SEX WITH HIM". But it's very, very heavily implied. Subtle, but clear.

EDIT : I'm talking about official Lore here. Of course if you go on DeviantArt, or on far more deviant fan sites, you will definitely find more stuff related to Sylvanas. But, you can't blame Sylvanas for what the community does with their characters.

EDIT 2 : Also, for Christ's sake, in Legion they changed her armor model, which was a plate bikini (which was arguably sexist), to a full leather\/plate armor. And she's still one of the community's favourite characters. What more do you need to understand that people don't treat her in a sexist manner?

Comentado por Auryqiss

on 2017-04-18T16:58:13-05:00

Curous before I start reading: Does this explain the "whitewashing" that happened with nathanos? You know, how he used to actually be an actual real forsaken back in the day but was made into a human now?

Comentado por vfaulkon

on 2017-04-18T17:03:50-05:00

It does, indeed.

Comentado por Shelassa

on 2017-04-19T00:47:40-05:00

At this point, I hope that there will be at least a single detailed Marksmanship post (something more than "Vulnerable is fine") sometime around 8.0. For all the "improved communication" devs promised, certain specs remain in the dark.

Comentado por kodora1316

on 2017-04-19T03:09:04-05:00

I really enjoyed that short story

Comentado por Daveko

on 2017-04-19T08:45:41-05:00

I got the feeling, especially with what the ranger said at the end, that Sylvanas likes Nathanos, but even though he is a bit fond of her aswell he doesn't realise how much she like him, and now he doesn't really care either.

Comentado por Fairelmaine

on 2017-04-19T14:30:12-05:00

Sylvanas has been spat on by the alliance many times.. Rejected her just because she was dead. Whatever she did was ill in comparison for what they did to you. Shut up alliance praising $%^&*!@.